


Precise Comforts

by Letterblade



Series: A Ghost Enters the Land of Dragons [2]
Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: Bondage, Headspace, M/M, Mostly Gen, Past Abuse, nonsexual kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 18:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1194732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letterblade/pseuds/Letterblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of the various peculiar things Lord Masamune had suggested after taking Katsuie in, asking Kojuro to tie him up had to be one of the stranger ones. Yet like most of them, it proved surprisingly worthwhile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precise Comforts

**Author's Note:**

> ...okay, I am really not sure where my standing headcanon that Kojuro is a rope bondage top came from, it just sort of happened.

This was Lord Masamune's doing.

Which is to say, he'd simply sauntered by one night, given Katsuie a considering look, and said that he should get Kojuro to tie him up someday, see if he liked it.

Katsuie had been--dubious. Considerably so. After that endless time feeling trapped amongst the Oda, trapped within himself, frozen and paralyzed--how could he enjoy being trapped again?

Yet Lord Masamune's strange ideas had this tendency to work out. Not just that, even, but make unexpected bits of happiness bloom inside him.

Kojuro, at least, didn't seem particularly surprised by it, to the point where Katsuie wondered if Lord Masamune had shared his apparent talent like that before. Instead he simply nodded, later questioned him about his health and wishes--to which he could not answer much. So it had all led to this night, kneeling carefully on tatami mats in a private chamber by lamplight, stripped to fundoshi as Kojuro laid out neat coils of rope. There was a precision to it that comforted him, at least. A precision to how Kojuro picked up the first length, uncoiled it, let it fall in loops across the mats as he knelt behind him.

"What must I do?" he asked quietly, a touch unsure. He could _feel_ Kojuro's presence behind him, warm, weighty, the force of his spirit crackling down his bare back. His eyes no doubt tracing the furrows of scars left from the punishments for his rebellion, but at least he did not comment.

"Relax," Kojuro answered. "Leave your arms by your sides, I'll tell you if I need you to move."

One of those was far easier than the other. Though his tone was relaxing, at least. Calm. Matter of fact.

"And tell me," Kojuro added after a moment, "if at any time you want your release. This is neither punishment nor trial, and you need not endure if it becomes unpleasant for you."

What if he wished it to be, he wondered. No, perhaps he had suffered enough punishment to last a lifetime, even when it was no less than he deserved--but a trial, what if he wished for that. No. _See if you like it,_ Lord Masamune had said. He bit his lip, nodded.

Kojuro held rope in one hand, reached around him bodily, caught it in the other and drew it across his chest. He almost shivered at the feel of it all, the warmth of his body through the silk of his kimono against his bare skin, the compact strength of him, the brush of callus on Kojuro's hands as he laid rope across his skin. The tanto on his belt, there to cut him free in desperation, nudging his ribs lightly. The rope smelled faintly of warm grass, was soft-worn, strong, with little give. Katsuie held still, breathed. Several turns of rope, laid neatly side by side, over his chest and arms as one, a little below his biceps. Kojuro moved easy, his precision was comforting, but he did not understand, he could simply raise his arms...

Then he slipped rope between his arm and his side, hitched around the turns already there, and tugged. It caught, it held, cinched snug and pinning his arm, and his breath caught with it, eyes widening a little.

"...tighter," he murmured. Almost without realizing it. So faint his voice near stuck in his throat.

Kojuro paused, rested a hand on his shoulder with a contemplative hum. "Why?"

Katsuie blinked and stirred just a little. "My apologies--"

"No need." Kojuro moved again, calm and measured, mirroring what he'd done on his other arm. "Too tight can cause you harm, and I'll not have that. Is it pain you desire?"

"I--don't know." It was a murmur, honest, and for a moment he could not speak, not with the rope snug across his chest and arms, like Lord Masamune's arm slung around him. He did not struggle in earnest, was not sure he could raise his arms if he wished. He had endured such pain, had thought little of it, could not say it brought him joy. "I don't. Believe so?"

"Mm. I see." He reached around him again, setting a band of rope a palm's width lower on his chest, and Katsuie felt his breath hitch again in turn, could not even name the strange feeling stirring in him. "You wish to be secure?"

It took him a few moments to answer. Moments that Kojuro took to lay another turn next to the first, cinch it between his arms and his body again, just above his elbows. His wrists not even bound and already so little he could do.

The only answer he could muster was a nod, hair swinging past his cheeks as he bowed his head. What could he say? He had no words for why he wanted this, why he gave himself to it so readily. The lamplight burned strong, the braziers were warm for him, the room was small and safe. In the distance, he could hear singing, very faint, Lord Masamune's men carousing outside, but here there was just Kojuro's steady breathing and the hum of rope through his rough hands. Hands that could release him at a word, even if knowing that only made him more reluctant to ask for it. A future.

Kojuro asked little of him, he found, simply guided him, his strong hands surprisingly gentle on his wrists as he drew them to rest one on the other in the small of his back, where he hardly had leverage to struggle even if he wished to. A little coil of alarm burned in his belly in spite of himself, as he felt the rope close around his wrists--as if that, now, made any difference--truly he treasured it, it had been a long time since he'd cared enough to feel any fear at all. Defenseless, now, in Kojuro's hands. But somehow, through turn after turn of rope that even crossed over his palms, he relaxed, slowly, unexpectedly. Knelt perfectly still as Kojuro spun more rope around him, over his shoulders to lock them in place, around his waist, binding his arms to his body so firmly that he couldn't imagine moving them. Secure. As he'd said. Bonds that held him tight as a lover's embrace, far less frightening.

For a moment, he simply breathed, Kojuro's hand on one shoulder.

"More?" Kojuro asked simply.

"...please." He bowed his head.

"I could bind you so thoroughly that you could barely move at all," Kojuro said, as calmly as if he was discussing troop formations, and Katsuie felt some strange tingle run down his spine, his eyes widen a little. "Would you like that, do you think?"

"That...that sounds good. Thank you."

Kojuro nodded, not unkind. "Rise a little, then, and widen your stance." A hand in the ropes crossing between his shoulder blades, guiding him, readily taking some of his weight as he spread his legs. He found his balance, kneeling up, looked down and watched Kojuro's hands, as he worked his way down, methodical, making sure the rope lay smooth against his skin, the turns were neat and even. As if he was watching hands move across somebody else's skin. Until Kojuro drew rope round his thigh, high up where the inside of it was more tender than Katsuie could have imagined, where none had ever so much as touched him. He felt himself tremble, almost, must have given some voice to it, because Kojuro paused, still on one knee beside him, and looked him square in the eye.

"Is it uncomfortable?"

His eyes flicked down to the side, he drew a breath and flexed his arms fruitlessly against the rope, Kojuro's hand warm somewhere on his thigh. What could he even say? That he had not known love? This wasn't even about that at all. Not that he could even say what it _was_ about. Simply that he liked it.

"...no?"

There was some complicated look in Kojuro's eyes, when he managed to meet his gaze again, and Katsuie didn't dare ask, but wondered if he'd guessed, somehow, what it was. Neither pried; Katsuie closed his eyes for a moment, felt the rope tight round him; Kojuro closed the loop around his thigh, followed on the other side with perfect symmetry, and it tightened like a net round his hips, the root of all motion, and somehow that was almost as controlling as having his arms bound. He drew a slow, shaky breath, felt Kojuro's hand rest between his shoulderblades again.

"Sit agura," Kojuro murmured, and guided him into it. He settled, found his balance--odd, with his arms behind his back, he found himself leaning forward a little, head bowed. Kojuro sat opposite him, moving with deliberate, contained power, as always, and reached to lash his ankles together, turn after turn. Katsuie watched his hands for a moment, then closed his eyes slowly and felt them instead. He could not run now, could not even stand. A tug on the harness round his hips made him open his eyes, look down to see Kojuro running rope between there and his ankles, so he couldn't stretch his legs. Helpless, truly, left only with the knowledge that he could plead for his release--and yet it frightened him little. Hadn't he wanted that, when he wasn't so lost that he wanted to be a king--to set his will aside entirely for another, only to be given a cruel lord by fate?

With that done, Kojuro rested a hand on Katsuie's shoulder for a moment, looking him over with care. "If I'm to truly immobilize you, it'll be a bit more yet. Do you feel any strain, as you are?"

It was almost difficult to focus, through this strange peace of being bound. But he did, stirred as much as he could, shook his head slowly. "No. I could sit comfortably here for a time."

"Good." Kojuro rose; standing over his bound body for a moment, he seemed tremendous, Katsuie felt small and safe at his feet. "What I need to fetch is in this room, I'm not leaving."

Simply leaving his field of vision. Katsuie caught his breath, closed his eyes, unexpectedly grateful for the warning. There was a faint click of wood; when he looked again, Kojuro was laying out four bamboo poles before him, each the length of a man's leg and just thick enough to be sturdy. Their ends were worn smooth, well-used and hardly raw-cut, shorter than the bo staves some Oda footsoldiers carried--no less painful to the ribs, he'd guess. Kojuro took one and knelt behind him, and Katsuie felt uncertainty eat at him, curled and uncurled his hands. He would know soon enough, there was little point in asking. Kojuro would have said if this was to be a beating, he was that sort of man, was he not?

"You are safe," Kojuro said, as if he could read the tension in his body, and Katsuie blinked in surprise, turned to peer over his shoulder at him. A hand sliding down his back, under strands of rope, opening space along his spine. Enough space to slip the pole through, bit by bit, under his arms, until the tip of it touched the floor just behind him. It drew the ropes a little tighter, it held him utterly rigid--it was perfect. Some faint noise escaped his throat, he felt some distant rush of shame at his enjoyment, bowed his head.

"You are safe," Kojuro murmured again, and rose, padded around to stand before him and pick up two more of the poles. Katsuie could barely even think for a moment, could only feel, as Kojuro set the other two poles upright with their tips just forward of his knees, lashed them together with the one along his back to make a tripod, to hold him in place even if he struggled, hold him up even if he went so limp that he fell over. He was--safe.

"Thank you," he breathed, relaxing, slowly. Kojuro settled back before him, reaching for the last pole, more rope. Katsuie fell into some strange haze, let the rope take him, unyielding, as Kojuro kept working, lashing the pole crosswise to the two that stood in front, then his calves to the pole, his thighs to his calves, until his legs were just as motionless as the rest of him, until he sat in a web of robe that blurred before his half-closed eyes.

"Can you move?"

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, he'd hardly even realized Kojuro had finished binding his legs. It took him a moment to even react, a moment more of helpless tugging. Barely an inch. His toes flexed with the strain, his hands fisted, he shook his head, wordless.

Yet Kojuro wasn't finished. Still sitting before him, he reached for thinner rope now, the sort of cord a ninja might use to snare a running man, and uncoiled it just as carefully as the rest. "I could do still more, if you wish."

"More...?" Katsuie blinked at him, at the rope, bewildered.

Kojuro reached to thread the cord between his toes, one by one, separating them, looping the cord round his ankles so his feet were flexed, just as snugly bound as the rest of him. He watched in unexpected wonder, could barely even move his toes.

"Then...yes," Katsuie managed, rather late along. "I did not realize..."

"That's all right." Kojuro uncoiled another length of cord, began to bind his other foot. "This sort of thing isn't very common."

Katsuie wondered how he had learned it, then. Didn't ask, as Kojuro wound cord round the arches of his feet to finish it off, not even attached to anything, purely for the sake of more rope against his skin.

Lost all thought of asking when Kojuro moved to kneel behind him and bind his fingers. Delicately, twists in the cord to keep it from pinching, but just as secure as the rest, tugging his hands into loose fists and trapping them there. Stranger than all the rest, somehow, more overwhelming than a few lengths of cord had any right to be.

But not as strange as when Kojuro sat before him again, tucked his hair behind his ears, and began, gentle and delicate, to run cord over his face. Almost familiar at first, under his chin and lip like the ties of a helmet, and he blinked at him, but then he went on, lacing it round the back of his head, hooking it round and under as if he was weaving a net over his face, framing cheekbones and temples, leaving his eyes free. Strangely intimate, how his fingers traced his face as he worked, and Katsuie could not meet his gaze, found his eyes downcast.

Somehow, when that was pulled snug and tied to the pole behind him, for a moment, he felt trapped. Well and truly, no way out, he couldn't even move his head--he gasped, he strained in earnest, he could hardly move an inch--as trapped as he'd been in the stocks that Lord Mitsuhide had locked him in for punishment in the courtyard of Azuchi--

Kojuro's warm, broad hand lighted in his hair, and his voice was dead calm. "Look up. Look at me."

He looked. Could only turn his eyes up, but he looked. Far away, men whooped in the night. Kojuro's face ruddy in the lamplight, the lines on his forehead a little deeper in concern, his other hand on one of the poles of the tripod, trailing a length of rope that he'd been in the middle of tying off somewhere.

"Take five deep breaths, breathe out slower than you breathe in, and tell me if you need to be released."

He obeyed without question. He breathed. In fast, out slow. The first few a little ragged. The world steadied. Kojuro smoothed a hand over his forehead.

"...no," he managed slowly, eventually, when five breaths were up.

"You don't need to be released?"

"No. It's." A few more breathes. Kojuro let out a breath of his own, went back to looping the rope he was holding around a pole, stabilizing the tripod more. "It's good," Katsuie managed eventually. All of it was. Overwhelming, yet--peaceful. "My humble thanks."

A trace of a smile on Kojuro's stern face. "My thanks to you as well. You're a pleasure to bind." Katsuie felt his throat close with surprise, didn't know what to say; Kojuro just carefully, lightly brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes. "Enjoy it long as you wish, though if you ache, tell me."

He couldn't nod. Couldn't much more but blink, speak, wiggle the tips of his fingers. Murmured, "yes."

His body was trapped, but his spirit was free. Now, now he understood. He breathed, he drifted, he closed his eyes and went limp as a sleeping babe in the rope. Kojuro moved around him, tying off whatever was left, he could only guess. Didn't even think much about that, after a while. Kojuro was there, kneeling somewhere quietly, he could feel his presence. That was all he needed. He was safe. Floating. Azuchi somewhere far away, and this was the future, and he was alive.

There were footsteps. Voices, low, he barely registered them at first; the world a distant, peaceful blur. He hardly even knew how much time had passed.

"Shit, you've got him all packaged up. He liked it, huh?"

"More than he expected."

"Well, he never expects much...oh, he's high as a kite, good job."

"Mm."

Closer. A presence before him. He drew a slow breath, opened his eyes. Lord Masamune, down on one knee so he could study his face. Lifting a hand to trace down the cords netting his cheeks, almost tender. "Hey there."

For all that his mouth was free, he could hardly find words. Something warm and wet on his face, Lord Masamune's rough knuckle brushing it away.

He hadn't even realized he'd been crying. A tear shaken loose as he opened his eyes.

"That'd better be because you're happy," Lord Masamune murmured. Traced his thumb over his lips now, as if to feel their every movement; he couldn't turn towards it, nor away, felt some strange instinct to mouth at it.

"Y...yes." He wasn't even sure of it until he said it. As if truths he hadn't even known were laid open.

"Okay." A satisfied smile. Pride. Worthy in his eyes--not that he understood how he'd earned it, or why, but his heart pounded and his lips moved under Lord Masamune's fingers. "Okay," Lord Masamune said again, a sharp little grin now, and splayed his hand over his bound cheek, and kissed him, full on the mouth, brief and friendly, and Katsuie felt his fingers twitch in rope and his chest heave and his throat choke on some noise he did not understand, and kissed back.


End file.
